


let me be your ticket home

by hariboo



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-20
Updated: 2011-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-31 01:43:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/338502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hariboo/pseuds/hariboo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His eyes snap open. Vala runs. His eyes snap open. Vala keeps running. His eyes snap open. He runs with Vala. Lather, rinse, repeat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	let me be your ticket home

His eyes snap open.

The sun is too bright in the sky -- shining like a fluorescent light against a ceiling -- and that's when he realises that he's flat on his back in the middle of a field. The tall pale green and yellow blades of grass surround him and brush at his cheeks like sharp feathers. He doesn't remember where he is and why he's there. He only remembers Mitchell asking him if he was sure, how Sam nodded, and the way Teal'c had looked to--

_Vala!_

Vala. Vala lost to them. Vala's face pale and her lips dry. Tubes poking out of her nose and mouth. Her hair a dark mess of a halo around her head.

Pushing off the ground he stares at the expanse of field around him.

The grass is tall and looks taller as it extends past where his eyes can see. The sun is blinding and yellow in the pale sky and he knows he's never seen such a place before. He feels no heat from the sun and there is no wind. There's shape in the distance. He can't tell what or who it is.

Vala, he thinks.

"Vala!" he shouts.

The shape moves closer and his legs feel heavy as if underwater, but he pushes himself forward. It is like moving through a fog, except he can see everything clearly, and every step feels like a challenge. Every breath feels too light. He wonders if it's the planet. He wonders if he has concussion. He thinks about why he's here and why every time he thinks of Vala he thinks of her lips. Of how pale they were the last time he saw them.

The shape turns into a figure being cut clearer and clearer by the sun shining behind it as it moves towards him. He moves towards it. The hair is dark and it flutters against sharp cheeks and then grey eyes become clear. Finally, he sees: her lips are pink and healthy.

"Vala," he breathes.

She blinks and tilts her head as if she doesn't recognise him and then her hand is at his face. Her finger trails the line of his nose and then she drops her hand to her side. She's wearing a dress. He's never seen her in dress such as this with its wide neck, long sleeves, and leather ties crossing over her arms and chest. She looks like a version of Vala he's never seen before.

"What are you doing here, Daniel?" she says.

He wants to touch her lips. He grabs her hand and sighs.

"I don't know yet."

 

 

 

~

 

 

 

They're inside a house. It's more like a cabin and he sees the remnants of a fire in the fireplace. Vala's standing by the doorframe. Her arms are crossed across her chest and her lips twist in a sweet scowl. Now she looks like the Vala he knows. She's wearing different clothes. She's in leather pants and her shirt is long tunic that brushes her thighs. Her feet are bare though, which is unlike her, and he wonders where her boots are. She's always wears her boots, or sneakers, like she can't let her feet be free in case she needs to moves. Run.

He feels they might need to run soon.

"Do you know now, Daniel?"

He looks at the house around them. Wood walls and wood furniture. Surrounded by brown she's like a shadow; dark, grey, fading.

"Who's house is this?"

She shrugs. "Doesn't matter."

"Doesn't it, Vala?"

She looks away from him and touches the frame of the door. "No, it doesn't."

He nods. Maybe it doesn't matter, he thinks. But he also knows: he's lying to himself just like she is.

Moving to where she's standing on the other end of the room, he nudges her shin with the toe of his boot.

"Put some shoes on."

 

 

 

~

 

 

 

He was right, they were going to be running. And running and running and running. He doesn't know how he can keep running so much. He doesn't know how she can run so much. How she never seems to stop or catch her breath. There's gunfire and blood and pain and yelling. Then there's more and it doesn't stop. He reaches out to grab her hand and pull her closer, or is it push her away, he doesn't know, but Vala doesn't let him grab hold of her and keeps running.

She never stops running.

He doesn't know how she's not exhausted.

But then again, he knows: she is. She'll just never let anyone see.

Vala ducks into a corner and he follows her. He can't not. This is not how this works. Where she goes he goes, _that's_ how this works.

He watches her lean against the dark, wet wall of the alley and wonders when it started raining. Her clothes are darker where the water hits them and he wonders if all those dark patches are just water. There are strands of hair are sticking to her face. She pushes her bangs from her damp forehead. They stick up every which way and he wants to reach to her to smooth them out.

She won't let him and he won't allow himself to reach out. Her bangs soon get matted down by the water, black with a slash of white-blonde, over her pale skin.

"Didn't think my life before you would be this exciting, did you, Daniel?"

He laughs. "No, this is pretty much how I thought it would be."

Her smile flashes like lightening and then it's gone in the shadows.

"What are you doing here, Daniel?"

Reaching out, he brushes the wall and the side of her arm. He moves close enough to her to feel her body heat, but there is none. It's just the wet and leather and a cool Vala.

"I'm here to help you."

"Lie," she laughs, and her breath is warm against his lips.

"Then I'm here to make sure you help yourself." He wants to tell her things he's never told her before, he wants to press her against the wall with his hips and call her a liar too. She knows why he's here. But the knowledge won't do anything. It won't help. It won't change anything. Not here.

This is not the first time they've done this.

"Why?" She asks.

"Because for some reason you're not willing to." Her lips are pale and he can barely make them out in the shadows of the alley. "What happens here, Vala?"

Her arm winds around him and he feels the press of her gun against his shoulder, the leather of her pants slick against his, but the sharpest sensation of all is her wet cheek pressing his glasses into his face so tight he thinks he hears them crack a little. Her lips move to his ear and they whisper.

"I almost die here." Her breath is the only warm thing about her and then she's gone.

 

 

 

~

 

 

 

He's alone for a heart beat, then two, then three. They feel longer than normal heartbeats. They feel like entire ages in history where he can't catch up to her and feels he never will. She's like a smoke, grey and intangible, something he can't quiet make out the shape of. She's Vala and then there are flashes where her face shifts and in her eyes he can see she's not the same Vala anymore. He searches for the moments where she's the Vala he knows or a Vala he recognises. There are so many years that remain shaded to him and shadows to her. Places she will not allow herself to open. Places he would never ask her to.

There is no one chasing her anymore, but that doesn't matter because now the chase is all she knows. She won't crash to a stop for years, he knows.

She runs and keeps running.

He sees flashes of her as she runs. Keeps running. Never stops.

He follows the trail of her smoke.

And then he watches as she slams into him.

It's one hell of a crash, but it's not the one that stops her. It only slows her down for spell.

 

 

 

~

 

 

 

"Fancy meeting you here," she says. Her grin is familiar and raw. Her lips are red and full. There's a ship engine's room around them.

"Vala," he mummers, "Don't do this."

She grabs his head in her hands. Her smile is both deadly and the most beautiful one he knows. The kiss is old and new and not enough, even now, even knowing what comes after. There's a moment he wants to change how this goes. Where he pulls her closer and presses her against the floor. Where the kiss doesn't stop and he asks her to _stop_. Stop running.

But that's not how this was ever meant to go.

She pulls away.

"Sorry, darling. A girl's gotta do and all that." All their words are different, but the actions are the same.

She slams their heads together. He already knew how this would end.

 

 

 

~~

 

 

 

His eyes snap open. The sun is too bright in the sky and he realises that he's on his back in the middle of a field. Slapping his hands on the ground next to him, he pushes himself up, annoyed with Vala. Annoyed with himself. The horizon is the same and the shape in the distance moves closer to him. The grass is sharp and prickling against his legs, but he doesn't notice it, and he moves forward.

Vala grins when she reaches him. She's wearing a dress and her smile is unfamiliar.

"Come on, Daniel, let's get out of here?"

He nods.

 

 

 

~

 

 

 

The cargo ship has seen better days, but he's grateful for the chairs in the cockpit. Vala sits in the pilot's seat, her legs propped up on the consul. She eating a fruit that looks reminds him of an apple -- it isn't an apple -- like she can't get enough of it. A little bit of juice runs down her chin and he can't help notice it is pink, like watered down blood. She wipes at her chin. He licks his lips.

"So, what now, Vala?"

She shrugs, "Adventure, mayhem; take your pick."

"Home, then," he says.

Her head tilts towards him like the word is riddle. The fruit crunches under her sharp teeth.

"I think we should go home," he says again.

"Now, Daniel, that's a very rude thing to say. You know I don't have one." Her words her flippant, as is her tone, but her eyes are more grey than blue, her lips are stained pink with the fruit's juice, it's blood, and her cheekbones are sharp like blades on her face. Her collarbones stick out too much and he thinks of starving children and stuffing doughnuts down her throat.

"You have one now."

She leans across the empty space between their chair and tosses the pit of the fruit in his lap. It's sticky and stains his hand with its pink blood-juice. He wants to bring it to his lips, but knows he will not be able to taste it.

"We both know that this is not now."

 

 

 

~

 

 

 

They end up in bar on a planet with a green tinted sky. She's laughing and drinking and picking pockets as she slips and slithers through the room. He never thought it would be something he would enjoy: watching her work, but he can't take his eyes of her. She's too bright and too dark all at once, blinding her marks with her smile, charming them with her voice, and seducing them with her eyes. Their gazes follow her after she leaves them and never suspect she has all their money or credits between her fingers or the folds of her clothes.

She changes when she reaches him.

There's a drink in her hand and she steps in the space between his legs. Decked in leather and sliver she makes him think of a pirates and treasure.

"It was different then," she says and looks over her shoulder where the bar is in a haze of smoke and shadow, "I moved faster, thought meaner, and never stopped to think on the people I robbed."

He nods. He knew this. "Survival of the fittest."

She laughs, tosses back her drink, and laughs some more. "What they never tell you is that the fittest usually means the most ruthless." She takes a step closer to him and her hand drops to his chest. "Funny, isn't it? How they never tell you that bit."

He brushes his hand across her jaw, where there's the shadow of bruise under her make up. "Yeah, funny. Where's your healing device?"

"Back on the ship," sighs, her eyes closing for a blink, and when they look back at him they are not the same eyes as before. "But we're not going back to the ship."

Her eyes flash gold.

Her lips are hard over his and he digs his hands on her hips to push her from him. Teeth dig in and when he manages to push her back he can taste her alcohol and his blood.

 

 

 

~

 

 

 

The room is different from what he remembers but it is familiar enough. He knows without knowing what's about to happen here.

He hears the screaming and turns to where he sees a sight he was saved from witnessing before with others.

Vala kicks and screams and scratches and gets free. She pulls a staff weapon from one of the Jaffa and blast him with it. She's barefoot and her clothes aren't hers. It's the shift required for the ritual and she looks like more like a warrior than a goddess. She spins the staff weapon to block as the other Jaffa advances on her, but she never sees the figure approaching her from behind.

He can't warn her. It will change nothing and her name is stuck in his throat like knife preventing him from breathing.

The figure is a woman, bold and beautiful, walking naked towards where Vala is. Her hand latches on to Vala's hair and pulls her back. Vala's neck bends at an uncomfortable angle and the Jaffa grab at her arms and legs.

The woman laughs like death and Vala twists in her captor's grasp.

Across the room their eyes meet and—

 

 

 

 

~~

 

 

 

 

His eyes snap open. The sun is too bright in the sky — like a fluorescent light, he thinks, he remembers — and he realises that he's on his back in the middle of a field. Her yells are still are ringing in his ears as he wakes. He pushes himself up and sees her.

Vala growls at him and pushes him back.

He hits the ground. Pain blooms at the bottom of his skull. He thinks he sees her eyes flash gold between the grey and the blue.

 

 

 

His eyes snap open. The sun is too bright in the sky and then it's gone.

Vala's body covers it shine as she straddles his hips and pushes him down.

"Leave, leave, leave!" She punches him in the face with each word and then he feels her lips against his cheek. "Leave!"

His jaw aches.

This time her eyes were bright blue and full of tears.

 

 

 

His eyes snap open. The sun is too bright—like a fluorescent light—

"Wake up!" She shouts at him.

Her fist digs into his ribs. The other cuts his cheek open.

(That's not completely right.)

 

 

 

His eyes snap open. The sun is too bright in the sky and he realises that he's on his back in the middle of a field.

"Why do you keep coming here?" she asks. There's an apology in her eyes.

He takes it. "Why do you?"

She looks up at the sky. The sun's glare is harsh and he has to squint to follow the outline of her profile. He focuses on the sharp jut of her chin.

"I don't know. I think you know more than I do at this point."

He stares as the wind pushes her hair around her face, but he doesn't feel it.

Shaking his head he sighs, "I don't think that's how it works."

"You may be right. We need to get out of here."

"Why?"

"I don't like this place."

 

 

 

~

 

 

 

"I'm sorry," she says, her fingers clenched on her arms. They're in the house again. She's playing at making some tea he knows they won't drink. He wonders if the movements are memory or it's just her adding new layers to what used to be in this place. Her hands look younger, but the shadows in her eyes are familiar ones.

He shrugs. His jaw doesn't hurt anymore.

"It's fine."

"It isn't though, Daniel."

"It's a part of your past, Vala."

"No!" she slams her hands down on the table and this time as her meet his they burn like blue fire and smoke. "That is her past. Her past she used my body to make."

"Okay."

"I don't want to talk about it, Daniel." She breathes and looks out the window. The sun is still too bright in the sky.

"I didn't say you did."

She grins and it's a lie of smile, but he takes it. He always takes her lies. Her liar's smiles are more familiar and comfortable to both of them than the truth. (She takes his lies too.)

"You were thinking it."

"How do you know?"

This smile is clever and shadowed one. It make him nervous but not long enough to cradle and keep the feeling.

"How indeed?"

He squints at her and but he can't get a read on her. He's not sure he would have ever been able to get a read on this Vala. The Vala that she was. She nods to the door and he knows they're moving again.

 

 

 

~

 

 

 

"There's something I want to show you," she says.

He wouldn't think anything on it except she reaches out and grabs his hand when she says the words.

"Okay."

The fingers of her free hand cover his eyes and he can feel her breath against his lips. "Close your eyes, darling."

He closes his eyes.

 

 

 

~

 

 

 

They snap open again. He gasps, fear flooding through his system when he realises he's in a coffin. Then more fear when he realises just what kind of coffin this is. A sarcophagus. His own memories flood him with the past and not being able to think clearly, having the need need need to lie down and breath and let the light heal—he stops thinking about that. He's in a sarcophagus. Not in _his_ sarcophagus; that was years ago. But this sarcophagus is flooded with the same light, meaning it's healing, and he turns to find his nose pressed against Vala's face.

He can see the blood flowing down her arm and then he feels stickiness of the thigh against his, realising: that's more blood.

It smells like copper and sweat.

Her eyes are close and breathing is heavy. _Her hair a dark mess of a halo around her head_ , the thought flashes through his mind like a memory.

"Vala."

Her eyes open slowly.

She smiles, and he can see the blood dried on her lips, "Daniel."

"What happened, why are we here?"

"In the alley, remember how I told you I almost died there?"

"Yeah, I remember," he shifts to side, bends his arm, and props his head up to look at her. Her lips are pale, save where they're split open and bleeding. Her teeth are stained pink with blood. Her body is barely clothed. Her legs are bare and he can see the bullet hole and blood. He moves his other hand to rest on her stomach.

Vala's hand covers his and her smile is bloodied but soft.

"This is how I didn't." The lights of the sarcophagus start flashing and he watches as it starts the process of healing and cell regeneration.

"I have to admit, I like it more than last time. Better company."

He can't laugh, but she does.

He bends to press his lips against her forehead. Never manages it.

 

 

 

~~

 

 

 

His eyes snap open.

There is no sky above him.

There's a ceiling, but no lights, and the nerve endings in his back communicate to his brain that there's no grass under him. It's a cold hard floor. Vala is silent at his side looking at him as if she's been waiting for him to open his eyes.

It's dark and he can hear sounds near him but they're muffled like he's listening to everything with a wall between him and reality, and he has a glass pressed up against his ear trying to make sense of it.

They moves across the room where he sees little fractions of light shine and he recognises them as the movement of flashlights. Suddenly, his mouth feels dry, his tongue too thick in his mouth. He knows where they are. They move in silence.

The lights get closer and he wishes he could changes what happens to here.

Moving swiftly he manages to get close enough to see. Everything still sounds muffled but he doesn't need to listen to know what's happening. He sees his team racing across the warehouse. He watches as Mitchell moves his hands wildly, knows he's telling them to get out. Sam's hair's long and flying into her face, pulled free from its tight braid as she reaches to her radio and calls to others outside. Teal'c is in the front. Vala behind him. He can see himself keeping pace next to her. His limp isn't a noticeable as he thought it would be. As it felt.

There's a count down going on in his head and he wants to change everything that happens now. Next to him Vala tenses. She's says nothing.

The sounds of the team are muffled but there's one thing that sounds clear above them all:

Beep!

The countdown.

He can't do anything but watch and just as the countdown ends—

 

 

 

Vala pulls at him.

 

 

 

~~

 

 

 

His eyes snap open. The sun is too bright in the sky like a light shining against a pale wall. Too vivid to look at directly. Sand blows into his face.

Vala stand next to him where he lies on the sand.

He knows this sky and it's not one you would find on Earth.

Looking up at her, he runs a hand over his face. "How did you manage this?"

"Who said it was me?"

He gives her a look.

She shrugs. "I'm well travelled."

"I see." He doesn't want to think on the reasons why Vala would be familiar with Abydos. He stands and watches the wind drift over the dunes. The ripples in them make it look like an ocean empty of water. "Did you do this for me?"

"No. I think you did it for me."

"That's not how this works, Vala."

She grins and turns to face him, "Isn't it, Daniel?"

"Why are you keeping us here?"

She laughs.

 

 

 

~

 

 

 

Her laugh still sounds from her lips as she fumbles her way into a room. It's a ballroom and she's wearing a very revealing outfit that has him struggling to keep his eyes above her neckline.

Arms pull at him and he looks down at himself. He's in leather pants and an open tunic. He goes to glare at her, but Vala presses her finger to his lips.

"Shh, just enjoy the show." Her mouth is just on the other side of her finger and her eyes shine. "This is a good one."

He rolls his eyes, but follows her gaze. There's a man at the end of the room, sitting on what looks to be a throne, and there's a large party going on around him. Every women in the room are dressed so provocatively that in comparison Vala looks demure. The men in the room are dress just like him, or have even less.

It makes no matter how he looks in this place, they both know, but he allows Vala this compromise. Perception is important.

"What happens here?"

Vala grabs his face and smacks a kiss on his lips.

"I win. For once."

She moves away from him and fills her old role. Her body shifts two steps in and he knows she's no longer the Vala he knows by the swing of her hips and the look that she sends over her shoulders. The way she moves is that of Mata Hari, of Aphrodite, of Salome, of Qetesh. The room revolves around her and he follows her.

Her fingers walk down the arm of a shirtless men, her lips press against the cheeks of women with sultry eyes, and then her smile flashes over to the man in the throne and she knows she's won. He knows it too.

The man signals her forward. As she moves to him he can feel his jaw clench. Vala steps up to the man and strokes his gilded armband with her fingers. Over her shoulder she sends a wink over to him. He tips his head and fights his frown. She pulls them to a new room and suddenly he's watching as she slides out of a bed. He averts his eyes but can't help but follow the line of her shoulder when the strap of her top falls down from it.

He steps up to curls his finger around it, pulling it back up. Vala smiles at him, but the look in her eyes is unfamiliar.

"How do you win here?" he asks, ignoring the snores from the bed.

"There's a vault in this room." She steps away from him and picks up the skirt of the outfit she had been wearing. Pulls something from the belt and moves across the room to a panelled wall.

He looks over his shoulder. "Will he wake up?"

Vala doesn't even spare a glance to the bed. "Drugged."

"Ah."

Hates the relief that rushes through him, pushes it away, and focuses on what Vala is doing.

Her fingers are quick as the panel reveals an advance wall safe and she pulls another little gadget from the belt of her skirt. It's thin and silver and shines purple when she places in the wall.

"Intergalactic safe cracker?"

She grins over her shoulder. "You would have been a great partner to have, Daniel. So quick on your feet."

He flushes, shakes his head. "I don't think I would have on board with the whole…" he shakes his thumb over his shoulder to where the snores still sound.

"Well, nothing to worry about there. Jokaz was both a fan of men and women. If you were my partner I wouldn't have gone in without you."

"Somehow that doesn't make me feel any better."

She laughs, the wall safe opens, "I always forget how bad you are at sharing."

He lets the comment pass.

Her hands close over something he can't see. Doesn't matter really. Whatever it is odds are she doesn't have it anymore.

"And how for our exit."

 

 

 

~

 

 

 

They're back on the sand dunes. Abydos shines so alive in front of him and he gasps when Vala turns his head with her hands.

Her lips are dry and taste of blood.

 

 

 

~~

 

 

 

"Daniel, wake up."

His eyes snap open into darkness. Her breath comes in sharp from his left. Her body is pressed against his side and then she's gone from him. The shape of his name around her lips. There are hands he can barely seen pulling away from him even as he reaches out to her, as he yells her name, and curses this place he knows there's nothing he can do but follow. Where she goes, he goes.

The room she's taken to is lit softly and golden.

Vala's voice come from behind him and he turns to a sight he wishes were a lie; an exaggeration of memory. Truth is: there's no exaggeration in this.

"No no no, get us out of here," she whispers, her eyes flitting across the room as if waiting for it to attack her. There are shadows he can't make out in the corners of his vision.

He kneels in front of her, cups her face in his hands.

"I can't. This is you, Vala."

She shakes her head. Sweat gathers at her temples. The shadows come closer and he can't tell what they are, but they move behind her and he can feel her body tense.

A shock goes through her body and he feels it in his own. He's thrown back away from her and crashes against the floor. Vala screams and her body bends unnaturally where she's strapped in. He feels every inch of her pain in his bones.

"Do it, Daniel!" She yells. She orders.

Another shock is shot through her body and his aches with the burn of it.

He gets it: where she goes, he goes.

Half walking, half crawling he reaches her as her body slumps forward where she's being held. Dark hair falls across her face and makes all the shadows of her sharp face darker. He thinks he sees a flash of gold. His hands curve tighter on her face, thumbs pressing against her jaw. "I can't! This all you, Vala. You control everything."

She looks confused. Her eyes are wild and then she focuses on him.

Her eyes shine like steel.

"Okay, okay, come closer!" she mutters, holds her head up.

"What?" He doesn't understand how much closer he could be.

"Come here!"

He moves his head closer to hers. Close enough to see the rawness of lips, the smoke in her eyes, and every pore on her nose.

"Sorry," she whispers.

Her forehead slams into his.

 

 

 

~

 

 

 

His eyes open to arms full of Vala on a cold engine room floor. The sharp point that is her chin digs into his shoulder and he knows that the shake in his body isn't because they're on cold floor. His arms tighten around her and her nails dig into his shoulders. He waits until she eases back.

It's a pair of eyes he knows. Silver and sharp and familiar.

"What was that?"

There's a dangerous and sad edge to her smile. "Before they freed me the Tok'ra questioned Qetesh." She leans back on his legs and flips her hair over her shoulder. His hands cover her hip bones.

He's known that the Tok'ra helped free her from Qetesh but now he wonders at what cost. What did they subject Vala's body and mind to get answers from the Goa'uld inside her? How long did they keep the parasite within her body just to keep it talking? From what the little they know of her extraction process he knows that Qetesh was taken out of her alive and killed after, but he wonders what died within Vala during her time with the Goa'uld.

There are about ten million questions he wants to ask, but only one he feels he has to.

"Why did you bring us here, Vala?"

The engine room around them shows the signs of battle and he can smile at the memory of it. She does not. Her face is clever lie.

"First place I could think of where I felt safe."

Her words however might be the first truly honest thing she's said to him.

"Liar," he smiles. Truth is not something they do easily.

She grins and lifts herself off him. Her fingers trail his cheekbones as she moves away.

 

 

 

~

 

 

 

"We can't say here, Vala."

She turns to him. Her lips are pale and chapped. Her eyes bright, their shadows sticking to the edges.

"Why not?"

He sighs. "You know why not."

Holding onto her shoulders he shoves her gently back. Her mouth opens, a small _o_ , and her fingers curls into his shirt.

They fall together; he pushes, she pulls.

 

 

 

~

 

 

 

His back hits a wall.

The lights get closer and he wishes he could changes what happens to here.

He's moving swiftly, and feels Vala walking at his side.

"Why do _you_ keep bringing us back _here_ , Daniel?" Everything but her voice sounds muffled and he doesn't need to listen to know what's happening.

He doesn't answer her. There's the team racing across the warehouse. Mitchell moves his hands wildly, and he knows that he's telling them they need to get out. Next to him, Vala presses her shoulder against his and the few lights in this place play with the lines of her face.

"Sam's calling the team outside," she narrates the ongoing in front of them and he realises he closed his eyes. "She wants to cut her hair again, you know. I told her not to be daft. She looks marvellous with long hair. Doesn't she, Daniel?"

He opens his eyes to watch as Sam reaches Teal'c, her rushing footsteps muffled, her hair falling free of her braid. He looks at Vala. "It looks good on her."

"And there we are," Vala continues on as if said nothing. "Always running, aren't we?"

"Seems that way."

"And look, we're just one step behind the other, aren't we? Except this time it's me in the back. Where you go, I go, Daniel."

His eyes snap to hers. "Vala."

"Even with that limp you're faster than me." She scoffs. "Sickening really, there I am, perfectly healthy and there you are, limping and still in front of me. I used to run for a living, you know."

He sighs. "I know."

She turns to him and her eyes are sharp like blade, grey like smoke, and unfamiliar to him. "Being in the SGC, being with _you_ \--you lot, has made me comfortable and slow." She turns back to the scene in front of them. A moment in time they can't change no matter how much either wants too.

The countdown in his head is reaching closer to zero.

He looks at where she's running and remembers what she was yelling _faster, Daniel, move faster_. He looks at her hands, pumping and then pushin—

Beep! The sound of the countdown ending is the only thing that is they can hear clearly and then the warehouse is gone.

They're gone too.

 

 

 

~~

 

 

 

His eyes snap open. The sun is too bright in the sky. Too vivid to look at directly. Sand blows into his face. Vala has her back to him and her figure cuts a shadow in the horizon. Her leathers are familiar, as is the bright blonde streak in her hair. Standing, he walks over to her and fingers the shorter blonde strands.

"You were making sure I wasn't the last one."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Then why can't you move past that moment?"

"Maybe it's because you're not letting me, Daniel."

"Maybe," he breathes. "Maybe it's why we're still here."

She turns to him now and her grin could blot out the sun hanging in the sky. He wants to cover it with his lips and make it go away. His hands slip under her jaw. His thumbs trace her dry, chapped lips.

Her mouth shifts under his skin. "Don't you like it here? Don't you like seeing the stream of my life flashing by like a picture show?"

"No, because you don't want me to see it."

Her hands move to circle his waist and she steps closer. Her grin is as bright and lying as ever. "Top of the class, aren't you?"

"Vala."

"You're missing something important about the warehouse though, Daniel."

He blinks. Blinks again.

"I'm sor—What?"

Harsh winds blow her hair into her face and it looks like a veil of dark spider webs flying across her eyes. Sly and silver eyes look at him and she moves closer, her mouth, his thumbs, near to his own lips. The stretch of her smile is knowing and sad. Her forehead touches his and her breath mingles with his.

"I'm not the one pulling us away from the end."

With those words she steps away and then everything is shifting to quickly around him.

 

 

 

~

 

 

 

Vala'a laughing; she's yelling and cursing and shooting and pulling bullets from her skin.

Vala's running; she's bruised and bleeding and grinning, her pocket full of riches.

Vala's dark and shadow; her legs never stop running, her hands never stop moving, her smile turns bloody and then morphs into gritted teeth and pale lips.

Vala'a shooting and she spins and winks at him. She winks at not him. She kisses him and then punches him. She's running. Moving though the galaxy like a river of silver smoke that fades in her wake.

Vala's kissing and laughing and stealing and running again.

 

 

 

She never stops running, never lets him catch her. He can't catch his breath and then he sees it—feels it. The opening, the twist, the moment, the look, the flip.

He's not sure what to call it, but he can feel it.

He makes himself fall and follow through the shades of black in her past.

 

 

 

 

He's back in the middle of a field. "Enough," he calls out. "Stop running."

Vala's at his back, her chin sharp on his shoulder. "Are you sure I'm the one running?"

He turns his head to the side, feels her nose against his cheek, "No."

"Clever boy."

Her fingers are around his wrist and when she pulls he lets himself fall back with her.

 

 

 

~

 

 

 

Her yells echo across the ship as she pushes. The handmaidens flutter worriedly around her and the Prior in the corner of the door keeps his milky-glazed eyes on her.

Tears gather in the corner of her eyes and her hand shoots out to grab something.

He grabs it.

Her face snaps to his.

"Daniel," she sobs. The only time he's every heard her voice break like that.

And that's how he knows:

This is the crash that made her stop running.

A baby's cries fill the room.

"I'm sorry," he says even as everything starts to fade.

 

 

 

~

 

 

 

"Really," he asks as the Atlantean horizon stretching out in front of them. He's on a bench near one of the docks and he can feel her behind him. The sun is low in the sky, setting over the ocean in a burst of orange, pink and purple.

"What? We had a good time last time we visited." There's a smile in her voice.

He laughs, "Yeah, we did. But why bring us here?"

Vala brushes her hand through the short hairs at the nape of his neck.

"Sometimes its good to remember the good times, isn't Daniel?"

Vala folds her arms over his shoulders and rests her chin on top of his head, her hand dangled in front of him. He reaches up and curls his hand over her wrist. Nods. He'd like to think she's smiling as the sun finishes setting. He closes his eyes.

 

 

 

~

 

 

 

He opens his eyes. Gun fire pops like firecrackers through the temple and the forest. They dive behind a felled pillar and squat down, glancing over at each other. Her cheek is scrapped and he has mud covering his glasses. His arm burns from a lucky hit. The P90 is heavy and warm from use against his shoulder. Vala yells over the weapons fire.

"Good time?"

He laughs, the pain of his wound is phantom but there. The memory is strong. "No, not a good time."

"What's here then that matters?" Vala asks.

As the staff blast explodes too near Vala's head, he remembers. Or at least thinks he does. The memories overlap and for a second he sees himself moving a second too slow to save some else. He's not too slow this time and he lunges at Vala. The pillar where she was hiding behind shatters and they hit the ground just as Teal'c and Mitchell show up, evening the players out. Their friends are blurs the background of his and Vala's reality.

Her body is still under his, her hands at his shoulders.

"We—you almost die here," he says.

"You saved me here."

That's what matter he wants to say, but there's no need, because they both now know what happens next. Vala kicks her left leg up and flips them. She shoots at the Ori solider that was coming up on them.

She looks down at him.

He looks up. "You save me here too."

That's what really matter, he understands.

Behind them the forest is blurring harder in shades of green too bright for his eyes and everything is out of focus save Vala's face. In the shifting forest he thinks he sees faces of his past, faces of her past that she's letting him glimpse at, and then all he sees is her eyes.

Vala's bright, every changing eyes. Part of her hair is fanning over her shoulder, pulled free from one of her pony tails and her lips—her lips are—

Pale.

 

 

 

~~

 

 

 

His eyes open to the sun heavy in the sky. The grass surrounds him and when he stands she's already there. She's not in a dress or leathers or BDUs. She's wearing jeans. The same jeans that she was wearing when running from the warehouse, the same jeans that have burn marks running down the back of the thighs. Her shirt is a dark blue only a shade or two darker than the jeans and her leather jacket is a buttery brown. In the warehouse she had a gun tucked into her back of the jeans, and a knife in her boot. She always carries a knife in her one of her boots. The ones she brought with her from wherever she came from that day when she spun into the gateroom with a smile and quest have a little compartment in the heel for a speciality knife. Those aren't the boots she's wearing that day in the warehouse. That day its just regular Earth boots with a knife tucked into the leather.

Right now, she looks like she's from Earth. Jeans, shirt, jacket and boots. Nothing out of the ordinary, but the person wearing them. On the surface she's a great liar. Under it she's a great survivor. He wonders if that's what she's doing now; if that's what this has all been about.

Surviving; just a little bit longer.

In the distance he sees the cabin she brings him to when he wakes up in the field.

"So, Vala, what is this place?"

She turns to the distance, squints at the shadow of the cabin.

"A place I no longer belong to."

"Did you ever really belong to a place?"

"At one time I thought I did." She rolls her shoulder and turns her back on the cabin. "My mother died in that house."

He blinks. "That's where you grew up?"

Her lips stretch wide over her bright, sharp teeth, "After a fashion."

She grabs his hands and everything shifts.

 

 

 

~

 

 

 

Her hands frame his face and the desert wind blows sand around them. Sand blows into his face. He feels the grains on his lips and sees them dust at her cheek and shoulders. She's still in jeans.

"I think we got it now, darling."

"Why bring us back here?" It's not where they need to be.

Vala touches his lips with her thumb, "Just saying good-bye."

He kisses her before the sentence has fully escaped her lips. Her lips open under his, her tongue slick against his.

She clutches at his face, her short nails bite into his skin a little. His hands twist and pull tight in her hair.

They kiss because they got it. He—they understand.

Where she goes, he goes. Where he goes, she goes. That's how this works. It's not about him or her anymore. It stopped being about either of them a long time ago. Maybe even at the beginning of all of this when they just thought it was about the other. The reality is that it became about them. It's not her that he's here to help. It's not him that she's here to help.

It's them.

Together.

They were running together at the start of this and they have to reach the finish together.

He was wrong. He thought it was about getting her and helping cross that line, but he's been pulling them back just as much, just as fast. The line is a jagged edge and to cross it they have to fall over it. At the same time. Together. The same way they came in is the same way to get out.

He understands this now.

Carding his hands through her hair, he cradles her face, and kisses her lips one last time. Vala's hands curve under his jaw. She steals one last kiss and leans her forehead against his.

It's time.

 

 

 

~

 

 

 

Time is a construct. Time is intangible. Time is what they have too much and not enough off.

 

 

 

~

 

 

 

They're in a room on the Odyssey that's strangely familiar to him. There's a beam of light frozen in time front of them and he can feel Vala's arm around his waist.

"It's been so long, hasn't it? That we've been in here."

"Depends how you look at it." He shrugs," Out there, it's barely been a second."

"We always knew Sam would fix it."

"We did."

She doesn't cry. Her face buries itself into his shoulder, but she doesn't cry. His arm curves across her back. So much time has past and in a few days so much time will be lost and rebuilt.

"But it was us this time. This time we had to fix ourselves," she sighs against his shoulder.

"Yeah," he touches her cheek, turning her face to his. "This time it was us."

What is time, anyway, but a construct of the human race to count their days. They slip from this moment too fast and like that it is gone. It has faded into the folds of time and memory.

 

 

 

~~

 

 

 

His eyes snap open.

There is no sky above him.

He knows where they are. He always knows when they come back and everything is muffled save the sound of the beeping and sound of footsteps running. Vala is in jeans next to him and they're running already. The sound of the countdown is behind them and all around them. Mitchell is out front, calling out orders; Sam's hair is flying out of her braid as she calls on the radio the outside team; Teal'c is leading them, his stride long. Vala is next to him in jeans and he knows she can be further ahead. His limps doesn't bother him now, not like it did then, and that's when he realises that it the first time they're not just observers here. He's running with a limp he can't feel and Vala is keeping next to him. She's yelling at him to go faster, _faster Daniel!_ , and the beeping is getting louder.

He pushes himself and he remembers the pain that travelled up his leg as he forced himself. The adrenaline had muffled it during the time, but now the memory of it pushes through and he can feel it. Vala stays by him.

He shouted at her to go, he remembers. She pulled him forward—

He remembers.

She pulled him forward. Not the other way around.

The scene does not shift. Neither of them let it this time.

The countdown has reached zero.

She pulled him forward and pushed him away from the blast. She pulled him forward and pushed him away from the blast that bloomed bright and deadly at her back. He remembers. It wasn't the other way around.

Now he feels her weight as it falls heavy and dead on his back and he hits the floor, his cheek splitting open as it hits the ground. ( _Her fist digs into his ribs. The other cuts his cheek open._ But that's not completely right, now he remembers. Her fist digs into his ribs as she falls on him and the other is by his cheek as it is cut open when he hits the ground. That's right.) His knee cracks against the ground and his glasses crack between the ground and his face. Her breath is shallow in his ear, she's dead weight on his back, and he hears the muffled sounds of their team calling for them.

He can barely move but he turns his face and tries to roll them away from the flames. All he remembers before darkness comes is Vala's face: pale. Her lips: dry, blood highlighting the inside of her mouth.

It's not the same this time. The darkness doesn't come like it did.

They are still awake. And that's wrong.

They shouldn't be awake.

Not here, anyway. This is the wrong place.

Vala's breath is shallow next to his ear and his body turns to her. Her lips are bloody. Thick pale lines highlighted in red.

"Vala," he chokes out.

His body aches everywhere even though the pain is phantom.

"Daniel," she says, opening her eyes. They're grey and shadowed.

"Why are we still here?"

She grins. Touches her hand to his face and chuckles. "Going own the rabbit hole is different than climbing back up."

He blinks. Everything is turning into a hazy around them and he almost feels the memory of hands picking them up and moving them away from each other. He clasps his hand over hers. Around him everything is fading out. The sounds he hears are not the ones he should be hearing.

There's a far away beep-beep-beep like a heart monitor and Mitchell and Sam's voices are soft. Worried, but soft. Not the shouts that they're supposed to be.

"Not letting go," tightening his hold on her hand he mumbles. "Not letting go."

Vala leans up and presses her bloody lips against his bloody cheek.

"Ditto, darling."

 

 

 

~

 

 

 

It's not like falling down. It's like being pushed up when you want to be falling. The weightless feeling of zero gravity or sky diving except the air is pushing you up as you head down.

It's not like falling down.

It's like swimming up.

Only you have no air.

 

 

 

~~

 

 

 

His eyes snap open. He gasps for breath.

The fluorescent light of the infirmary's ceiling is too vivid to look at directly and he has to blink away.

Somebody is talking to him, but he can't make out their words.

His body is sore, he can feel the electrodes stuck against his temple and all around his head. He can feel where the IV is pushing into his skin and how dry his lips feels and tongue sneaks out to lick them. He doesn't— The infirmary's sheet is crisp and starched under his body, uncomfortable. He doesn't—does remember.

He remembers.

Vala. Vala, the explosion. Vala's face pale and her lips dry. Tubes had been poking out of her nose and mouth. Her hair a dark mess of a halo around her head.

Her brain, his brain, the what the blast did to them.

He remembers and lurches off the bed.

Two sets of hands hold him down and now he can hear them.

"Relax, relax," Sam's smooth voice washes over him.

Hers and Mitchell's faces cover his field of vision. They look worried and relived. He thought it impossible to do both, but they do the impossible every day.

"Ease up, Jackson. You've had a hell of a ride."

"Cam, get some water. He must be thirsty."

Daniel wants to tell them to shut up. There's only one thing he wants to know.

"I don't want water," he manages. His throat is too dry, but he has no saliva to swallow. The words come out thick and scratchy.

Mitchell appears with the cup of water, but Daniel doesn't take it. Mitchell shoves it in his hand. There's only one thing he has to know.

"Vala?" Her name is pulled from his chest and now, only now, he takes a sip of the water. It feels like it's been a long time since he's had any, but that doesn't feels right.

It's not Sam or Mitchell that answer.

"Peek-a-boo, Daniel." He hears from his side.

Her voice is already deep and too husky for his blood pressure on the good days, and today is not a good day. She sounds as raw as he does. He shifts just as Teal'c moves out of the way and lets him see her. Her face is pale and her lips are dry. Those are the first things that he notices. Pale lips. Her eyes are aren't grey or blue (or gold, his mind whispers for some reason he can't grasp) but a blend of the two. Her smile is tired.

He wonders if his mirrors it.

She has electrodes attached to her head and they're attached to the machine to which his own electrodes are attached; a twist of wires connecting them. The machine is familiar — it's the memory device from Galar, the one that Mitchell had to use and was used on him, Daniel realises — and squints at it. It's the same, but not quite. Faded images and half hidden dreams, or are they memories, he asks himself, are picking at his consciousness. Vala meets his eyes and—

He sees flashes of her as she runs. _Keeps running. Never stops._

_Vala pulling at him. Her forehead slams into his. "I think we got it now, darling." Her lips open under his. Her tongue slick against his. "We almost die here."_

Almost.

But didn't.

Almost, but lived. Except something happened and they were gone. Brain damage he thinks he remembers Dr. Lam saying, but the memory is faded like dream. Who had the damage? Her or him? The last few seconds before that explosion at the warehouse and everything after it is fuzzy to him and he remember her body slamming into his, his crashing to the floors. The feedback from the machine had enveloped them and something had happened to her… to him… both of them.

Every question that burns through his mind is drowned out by one.

"You okay?"

Vala shifts in her bed, across from his, and faces him, rests her head against her pillow, her eyes on his.

"You okay?" She repeats his question.

Daniel shrugs.

"Yeah, me too; head hurt?"

"Like somebody slammed into the ground."

She laughs, dry and laboured. Teal'c presses a cup with a straw to her hand and Daniel watches as she sips carefully. "Thanks, Muscles."

From behind him, Daniel hears Mitchell grumble as Sam shushes him. "See, Teal'c gets a thanks."

Across from him Vala smirks. Daniel rolls his eyes. "Thanks, Mitchell."

"That's all I wanted."

"Come on, let's tell Dr. Lam they woke up." Sam cuts in and pulls Teal'c and Mitchell away. Daniel is reminded just why he loves Sam so much and why he misses her when she goes on her ship.

"I love when she's back," Vala says, echoing his thought.

He turns to face her, moving to a more comfortable position. "Yeah, me too."

"Daniel." She reaches up and touches the electrodes. He follows the line of her hand and mirrors it. They detached at the same time.

He sighs in relief when the room stays the same and Vala laughs.

"You saved me."

"You saved me too."

"You almost died."

"You did too."

"It's a very bad habit we're forming."

He laughs, "Yeah, it is."

"I think we should ask for some time off after this one." Vala says, rolling her shoulder. "Clearly we need time to mentally recover from our ordeal."

"Isn't that what this whole thing was? A time out?"

"I think we need a time out from our time out."

Vala looks at him through the curtain of her hair, her grin is one he's never seen before, but it's familiar somehow. Like he's seen it in a dream.

 

 

 

~~

 

 

 

His eyes snap open.

The sun is bright and heavy in the sky.

The wind blows across his face and Vala's hair follows it, ticking at nose. He turns to her, tucking the flying strands behind her ear, wraps his arms around her.

Behind her the sky is bright, but her smile is brighter.

 


End file.
